African Entrepreneurship Record

In turn, the aluminum semi-products from Xinde Town are transported by rail and waterway to Bela City and Tete City for further processing, becoming household items and components for electrical equipment, forming an industrial closed loop.

Of course, East Africa could completely deploy related industries in Xinde Town, and indeed did so, but Xinde Town, located at the Zambia River estuary, does not have the advantages of other river mouths leading to the sea; shipping is a major issue, and the refining of bauxite and initial processing causes significant pollution, especially to water sources, making it unsuitable for constructing large cities locally. Meanwhile, Bela City and Tete City, which are closest to Xinde City, bore a lot of subsequent processing work.

The potential of Xinde Town is still quite good; however, to realize development, East Africa must fully develop and manage the Zambezi River. This is the main constraint to Xinde Town’s development. Although the Zambezi River is East Africa’s second-largest river, its navigation conditions are too poor; from Xinde upstream, it can only be navigated up to Tete City—compared to some rivers on East Africa’s coastal plains, this level offers no advantage.

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May 1901.

During the flourishing phase of East Africa’s First Five-Year Plan, the East African Ministry of Technology visited Nairobi University for a survey, where a new technology was born, attracting the ministry’s attention.

The school’s research team hosted the ministry personnel, with Professor Robben, the head of the research project team, and his students overcoming a new soda production process.

Robben: ”Our country’s soda industry began in the 1880s; although a set of equipment was introduced in the 1870s, due to the lack of relevant talents, production was low. It wasn’t until the 1880s that our country recruited a large number of technical personnel and workers from Europe, establishing soda factories in places like Mbeya City.”

East Africa began its initial phase of industrial construction in the 1970s, which could be said to be quite tumultuous; although a large number of equipment were introduced due to the contemporary economic crisis, the shortage of technical personnel made many industrial equipment unable to be put into production and difficult to maintain.

However, East Africa’s situation back then was slightly better than that of the Far East Empire. Although East Africa itself lacked the corresponding talents and technology, it had the technical guidance of the Heixinggen Consortium.

The Heixinggen Consortium played a role in East Africa’s early industrial construction akin to that of the Soviet Union in the Far East Empire’s First Five-Year Plan.

With numerous enterprises under Heixinggen Consortium, obtaining technologies and professional talents was easier. Based on this, East African industry was able to develop, albeit with bumps, in the 1970s.

Without this premise, the large number of industrial equipment introduced in East Africa during the 1970s would merely have been akin to purchasing a heap of scrap iron.

Fortunately, in the 1980s, a large number of technical personnel from Europe and America were introduced into East Africa; coupled with the development of East African education and the returning overseas students, East African industry stabilized. Furthermore, in the 1990s, East African industry achieved considerable development, becoming fairly mature in terms of capital, technology, and labor.

East Africa’s soda industry also saw considerable development in the 1990s. Currently, East Africa’s soda production is self-sufficient and partially exported.

East Africa’s specific industrial and social conditions result in a relatively strong demand for soda, which stems from its applications.

Robben introduced: ”Soda, commonly known as baking soda, has the chemical composition sodium carbonate. It is abundantly present in nature and distributed across the globe; it’s divided by density into heavy and light soda.

Soda is divided by use into industrial-grade and food-grade soda. Industrial-grade soda is a key raw material for flat glass, can be used as a melting aid in metallurgy, a flotation agent in mineral processing, and a desulfurizing agent in smelting. In the textile field, it acts as a softening agent in the production process of fabrics.

Food-grade soda, as a food additive, acts as a neutralizer, leavening agent, buffer, and dough improver, enhancing the texture and elasticity of noodles, and it can also be used as an auxiliary additive in the production of MSG and soy sauce.”

Besides general uses, soda’s importance to the glass and detergent industries is a major driver for the development of East Africa’s soda industry.

In this timeline, due to the development of the automotive industry under Ernst’s guidance, the first industrially produced flat glass was manufactured in East Africa; East Africa’s early emphasis on sanitation fostered a focus on detergent products.

For example, early East African immigrant cleaning work overwhelmingly relied on products imported from Europe, substantially raising costs. Hence, East Africa has highly valued the soda industry since colonial times.

”Currently, our country mainly uses the Louis Braille soda production method, which is Europe’s most mature process with the largest scale of application.”

”Of course, the world is transitioning to the Solvay process in soda industries, but our country obtained the Solvay process relatively late due to the major powers’ blockade on the technology, not until after the South African War when our relations with Germany further improved did we acquire the pertinent technology.”

The Solvay process is the current mainstream trend in soda production, monopolized by major powers. It originated in the late 19th century (1860s), so East African industry initially introduced the earlier Louis Braille method.

Initially, soda was mainly extracted from plants; Europe extracted soda from the liquid soaked in seaweed ash.

However, following the British Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century, the demand for soda in industries like textiles, printing, paper-making, soap-making, and glass surged significantly. Solely relying on soda extracted from natural sources and plant ash proved inadequate, necessitating artificial production.

Later, under a lucrative reward from the French Government, the Frenchman Louis Braille achieved breakthroughs, giving rise to the Louis Braille soda production method, using raw materials such as salt, sulfuric acid, charcoal, and limestone.

This soda production process has continued up to now, utilized by East Africa and European countries, while the Solvay process may take at least another decade to completely replace the Louis Braille method.

Various reasons result in the most advanced Solvay process having a very small proportion in East Africa’s soda industry, and just when East Africa prepared to vigorously promote the Solvay process, significant technological breakthroughs within the country’s soda industry occurred.

The emergence of East Africa’s new soda production process is unlike both the Louis Braille and Solvay methods; its fundamental impetus is East Africa’s resource advantages.

The specifics of East Africa’s new soda production method involve refining existing soda minerals found in nature, rather than chemically synthesizing from other raw materials as the other two do.

This naturally brings up the global distribution of soda minerals, typically found in surface soda lakes and exposed surface mines, prevalently across North America, East Asia, Turkey, and much of Africa.

The Egyptian Soda Arid Valley is globally renowned for natural soda minerals; ancient Egyptians were among the earliest humans to use soda.

In East Africa’s Great Rift Valley region, areas like Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and southern East Africa sites like Botswana have ample natural soda minerals, rendering East Africa richly endowed with natural soda resources.

The creation of East Africa’s new soda production process by Nairobi University’s chemistry laboratory involved refining local soda minerals, yielding a novel soda production technique—similar to the natural soda method largely adopted by the United States later.

Professor Robben commented somewhat boastfully: ”The new soda production process actually has little technical content; it could be considered an accidental discovery of mine, which ultimately succeeded experimentally. Its main application method involves directly extracting soda from East Africa’s abundant soda minerals, and this method is less costly than the current mainstream soda production processes globally. If it can be realized on a large scale, it will no doubt significantly contribute to our country’s soda industry.”